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Sinfonia works with Pet Shop Boys

22 March 2011

The Royal Ballet Sinfonia - the orchestra of Birmingham Royal Ballet - have been working with Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe on their score for new ballet The Most Incredible Thing. Choreographed by Javier De Frutos, the ballet is based upon a Hans Christian Andersen story.

The score mixes live and pre-recorded elements, and it is the former which the Royal Ballet Sinfonia has provided. Speaking just a few days before the premiere, Neil Tennant said: 'This has been the first day that we've heard the orchestra playing together with the electronic music on the recorded track and it sounds very good. We've been impressed [with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia] - they were just sight reading, although we know they've been reading through their parts so we can see that
we're getting a lot of commitment from them.'

He explained how the two elements worked together: 'The difference between this and the recorded version which we released this week is that here we've been able to hear the percussion live for the first time, which makes it a lot more powerful. Likewise, working exclusively with a live band, you can stop and pause and start again, but a record has its own weight, you
can't stop and so you really have to concentrate.'

When asked if he had seen the Sinfonia perform with Birmingham Royal Ballet before, he revealed: 'Yes, in Sunderland, I'm up that way a lot. My sister's on the mailing list so I'll tell her to look out for what's coming up next!'